in case you missed it | Phlegming gags on tax hike

Phlegming gags on tax hike

What an ass. Republican U.S. Rep. John Fleming, who has slammed President Obama’s deficit-reduction plan because it contains tax increases for the wealthy, told MSNBC reporter Chris Jansing this week that raising taxes on the rich would prompt layoffs.

He went on to say that while his companies made $6.3 million last year, that was before he paid all of his employees and expenses. He had the gall to say that “by the time I feed my family, I have maybe $400,000 left over … .”

Cry us a river. Here’s the world’s smallest violin playing just for you, buddy.

Meanwhile, the average household income in the U.S. is less than $50,000 a year.

When informed by Jansing that he wasn’t exactly taking a sympathetic position, all this jerk could manage was, “Class warfare has never created a job.”

Wow, that’s profound. One might respond that deficits of this size have never been cut without some tax increases, pal.

And it was your former Republican president who racked most of it up. In his final term, the national debt rose more than 20 percent under Shrub, the biggest increase since Roosevelt. Under Obama, it’s gone up 9 percent.

When Jansing asked whether he would have to lay off any of his own workers if the tax increase were approved, he sidestepped the question.

Sorry, John, but you might not get to keep all of your measly $400,000. You might have to start living on ramen noodles, like the rest of us have been doing.

Uh, what?

Netflix announced this week that it is changing the name of its mailorder DVD service to “Qwikster,” but it failed to acquire the Twitter handle @Qwikster.

Turns out, that account isn’t available. It’s held by some stoner named Jason who found himself with more than 3,000 new followers after Netflix’s announcement on Sept. 19.

Judging from his past tweets, his new fan base of movie-watchers can expect these kinds of deep thoughts: “Bored as shyt wanna blaze but at the same time I don’t ugh fuck it where’s the bowl at spark me up lls.”

His reaction to all of his new friends?

“Dayum over 3120 follower just cuz some ppl wanna buy my handle 3 ppl have asked but idk who to trust.”

Ah, poor Netflix. It’s going to cost them more than some clean bong water to pry that account out of the hands of this cunning and calculating individual.

Ask, tell

Here’s betting that a lot of people came out of the closet this week.

On Tuesday, Sept. 20, America changed. Finally — finally! — gays and lesbians were freed from the ridiculous limitations of “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” a Clinton-era policy that enabled them to serve in the U.S. military — so long as no one knew they weren’t heterosexual.

No doubt Pat Robertson and the “God hates fags” idiots will blame the next earthquake/terrorist attack/flood on this policy change, but the truth is it’s one change that will only bother bigots. And we’re okay with bothering bigots.

Military leaders and Pentagon experts say the military is up to the task of integrating gay and lesbian members.

That’s reassuring. Because if the military can’t handle integrating gays and lesbians, how can it possibly be trusted to catch terrorists or fight wars?

War has to be more difficult than making room in the barracks for men who love men and woman who love women.

The rest of us will go about our business as we did before, beneath a sky that simply isn’t falling. In fact, the sky might be a little brighter because justice has prevailed.

Winston Churchill once said that Americans always do the right thing — after exhausting all other possibilities. That certainly seems to be the case with DADT.